Author: RE Iowa Region SCCA

Iowa Region SCCA was at Hawkeye Downs this weekend. It was another awesome event, there was some early rain that caused a delay. Hawkeye Downs needs to have a dry line for us to run, when the rain stopped we sent out most of the participants to drive the course backwards and get us a dry line. Worked great. ahaha.

Once things were dried up we had the driver’s meeting and novice walk. Hawkeye Downs has a somewhat similar layout each time due to the overall shape of the course, but we have some wiggle room for variation.

We had 65 people handle the rain delay, 22 of them were in our Novice class. Pro and Nats PAX classes had 12 Drivers. B Street and F Street were the biggest open classes with 6 and 4 respectively. Excellent turnout for the poor forecast we had all week.

Novice class was heated competition and a big variety of cars. 6th Place was Tary in their Focus ST with a 48.252(59.571), 5th Place was David in their ’01 Viper with a 48.226 (56.273). Pegleg of the Ballast Boys came in 4th in their Mustang with a 47.128 (57.126), Mike arrived in a C8 Z06 and laid down a time good enough for 3rd place in Novice a 46.716 (55.881). 2nd place was Ballast Boy Mark in their Mustang laying down a flyer of a last lap with a 46.062 (56.105). The top spot in Novice for event #6 was a DStreet GR86 driven by Dustin who ran a 45.095 (55.605).

The Ballast Boys are a newly minted group of AutoXers who have all been laying down their fastest laps on their last run with passengers! The debate is ongoing if it’s peer pressure, coaching or weight balance that allows them to drop time on their final runs when their friends are strapped into the right seat. Mark dropped 1.2x seconds on his last run, Pegleg also dropped 1.2x seconds with a passenger, Teddy’s fastest run was their 5th run which was a solid .6 seconds faster than previous attempts. We’re going to need more data from the Ballast Boys to figure out the answer to “the why”, but I’m excited to watch them drop time each run throughout the day. Upcoming test n tune should prove fruitful for data collection, get it Ballast Boys!

The Iowa Region SCCA Pro and Nats PAX classes had good numbers this event. With only the first 3 runs counting the pressure is really on. In the Nats PAX Class the KM crew of Dan and Ramon were trying to catch Dave in their GR86, even with flying raw times in the 46s the Kart couldn’t overcome the DS PAX. Dave solidified their top spot in Nats PAX with a 42.466 (52.363), Dan and Ramon had 43.345 (46.260) and 43.523 (46.450) respectively. Being a PAX class the (raw times) get multiplied by the class PAX multiplier to get a PAX time, this allows comparison of very different vehicles. The Pro PAX class was a Civic sandwich with Brent in GS, Jeremey in DM and Emery in GS taking 3rd, 2nd and 1st respectively.  Brent cracked off a fast 3rd run with a 42.493 (53.518), Jeremy squeezed out a 44.8 raw time for his 3rd run but picked up a cone, having to stand on his 2nd clean run with a 41.543 (45.854) just .6 back from Emery. Emery had a blistering fast first run with a 51.922 raw time, but managed to drop even more time in run 3 with a 40.905 (51.518) which held off Jeremy for the Pro Pax 3 and done format. 

The drivers in Open, Novice, Nats and Pro Pax classes all compete together for Top Time of Day (Raw) and Top Pax, all your runs count for all classes for FTD (Top Time of Day) and Top Pax. Usually we see faster times in the afternoon with warming temps and people being more familiar with the course. Top Pax AND Top Raw time were held by Jeremy in the DMod RC1.4t. Top Pax and FTD is an awesome feat, great driving Jeremy, 44.676 Raw and 40.476 Pax times. This 44.6 backed up Jeremy’s morning scratch time showing the time was there! 2nd and 3rd in Raw are Dan and Ramon in the KMod Kart with 45.843 and 46.260. The Kart is really starting to come into its own with Dan and Ramon piloting it. 2nd and 3rd in PAX were Andrew in their EVX Tesla and Emery in the GS Civic. The EVX Tesla had a 40.755 PAX just .279 behind 1st, Emery was only .150 behind Andew in the Tesla! Great driving everyone! Keep up the close battles. 

Full results can be found on the results tab or here.

July 20th – Hawkeye Downs – Final Results | Raw Results | Pax Results | Pro & Nats Class Results

Can’t wait to see everyone at the next event this weekend! Lets get the seat time!

Drew

RE Iowa Region SCCA

We had a good turn out today with 44 drivers. Split into two heats of 22 drivers, we opt’d for 6 runs and 6 runs type heat layout. Everyone only working once. Between the 6/6 or 3/3/3/3 layout which do you prefer? The official results are live here Results – Iowa Region SCCA. It was a day for tight battles within Pro class and PAX. Pro Class 2nd and 3rd between Jeff and Brent .049 second difference. Pro Class 4th, 5th between Ramon and Dan in the KM Kart .103 different. Matthew and Ramon .031 difference in PAX, Aaron and Bryan .051, Troy, Mike, Jim and Steve with a .013 for Troy and Mike and .004 for Mike and Jim and Jim and Steve .055. Between the 4 of them it was 46.821 to 46.893, 72 Thousandths of a second difference! Teresa, Brandy and Robert 48. 458 to 48.528, 70 thousandths of a second different! We also had a tie between DS Brett and DSL Jen with a 47.562 PAX time, that’s .000 seconds different!

 

Keep up the hard work everyone and thank you to all the people who helped setup and tear down the event. We look forward to seeing everyone at our Nat’s TnT that is open to everyone on 8/25 and again at our next points event at IC Airport on Sept 15th (http://msreg.com/IA-AX-24-9-IC).

Sunday September 17th 2023 was a borderline perfect Iowa day. Temps weren’t too bad, wind wasn’t wild, few picturesque clouds floating around, and 48 screaming fast drivers bombing around Hawkeye Downs Speedway in Cedar Rapids. Couldn’t ask for more. 

The Course was setup and tested on Saturday morning, Hawkeye Downs always uses a similar layout, this time was no different. We did tweak a couple spots to pinch speed and create a more technical element here and there. I personally really like the 6/8 packs in the back slalom to break up the monotony of the back and forth. This isn’t East Course at solo nationals 2023 afterall.

Sunday morning rolls around and we began the final setup and prep for the event. Competitors began rolling in when registration opened at 7:30. This event we had multiple father son combinations at the track helping with early morning prep. Both 12yr olds were planning on riding along with their dad’s, they both got roped into helping their dad in their work assignments. Good father son bonding putting them to work! haha. Once registration was closed we ended up with 48 drivers! 

Racing heats went pretty smooth throughout the day, the course was pretty quick with some nice technical points. Patience and threading the needle was critical. As people tried to push they did hit cones. Course workers got their steps in on Sunday no question. The Novice group was 7 drivers, Isaac, David and Ben pulling out the top 3 spots respectively. It was great to see drivers drop time. Isaac cleaned up from his 1st run AND dropped 4+ seconds. David dropped over 3 seconds from his first run. Ben dropped over 12 seconds over the course of the day! Jeremiah in the Novice class dropped over 14 seconds from his first run! that’s wild. Great driving for the Novices.

Pro Class also had 7 drivers, but they had a combined 66 cones in 49 runs….whoopsie doodle. David Price said “No cones No Cones No Cones” before the event, but I forgot to tell everyone that.  Pro Class is organized a little differently from the other classes. For Class points and rankings only your first 3 runs count. This is to emulate the importance of “Getting it done in 3” like you experience at a National Tour, where you only get 3 runs. The other 5 runs from each Pro Class driver still counts towards top Pax, FTD and year end “Soloist” of the year awards but the Pro Class championship is based on your first 3 runs! NO PRESSURE. Top 3 in Pro on Sunday were Spencer, JJ, and Jeff. They were within .7 seconds of each other! Spencer went into his 3rd Pro Class run dirty, which means he had no clean runs and had one chance to pull off not only a clean run but a fast one too! He managed to squeak past JJ and Jeff for the top spot in Pro Class on Sunday.

“You guys built a Kart Course on accident” – KMod driver Eric.

He’s not wrong, we didn’t build it for him on purpose but it worked for him. He ended up with FTD and 4th in PAX for the day. Joe, Bryan, John, Teresa and Leah were also in Mod cars for this event, split into 3 different classes. Joe took the DMod win, John won EMod and Lean took the win in DMod ladies.

Street Classes had 7 drivers Aaron took the win in DS and Aaron took the win in GS (pretty sure they are different Aarons, I’ll let another Aaron confirm). Street Touring had 5 drivers in 3 classes. Fastest of the bunch being Troy in his STU STI. CAM had 7 drivers in 2 classes. We saw an influx of corvettes this event and I’m 100% on board! The Corvettes of CAMS couldn’t catch Chance in his CAMC Camaro though, he took the CAM win Sunday. He kept complaining the course was slippery but he managed a fast clean time! XSA and XSB had 2 drivers each, Brady pulling out the top time between the 4 of them. Rounding out the remaining classes are Andrew in EVX with a flying time and 3rd in PAX, Aaron (pretty sure there were 3 different ones) in his RallyX spec Impreza laying down some very consistent times and lastly Jim in HCS (I keep forgetting to update his class in the main results, it’ll be updated for year end points) Alfa Romeo cracked off a 57.002 just .002 from a 56.

Top PAX was Andrew in his STU STI and I’ve stolen his youtube video from the run, take a look and enjoy. This is a flyer!

Check out where you and your competitors stacked up on the complete results here.

Final Results | Pax Results | Raw Results | Pro Class Results

See everyone in a couple weeks at Iowa City Airport! don’t forget to register there is a cap.

 

Drew

RE Iowa Region SCCA

Super fast update from event 7

Rain. It did that. 2hr delayed start.

We managed to pull off 6 runs for every run group and out by 4:30pm, not bad.

Course was fast and technical, course workers deserve a huge round of applause for all the running they had to do. Someone should count the total cones hit. Rumor has it Pro Class had 5 clean runs total out of 27 in the morning. Overall I think people enjoyed the course. 

We got to see some old and new faces! Jade who drove in from Baltimore, the GRR Miata Contingent + Turbo E36 + Lotus were there, Hans in his now top 10 at Hawkeye Downs DS Twin joined us, and we had a Nebraskan drive our normal route home from Nationals for some extra seat time before next month’s event. 

I’ll let you comb through the results, but a few highlights.

Emery took top Pax and a Pro Class Win, with a 50.444 he had 2 sub 50 second scratch times. IN A GStreet CIVIC!

Jeff Ellerby took top time of the day and 3rd in Pro Class, only .097 behind Brent who was in 2nd Place.

Spencer Dewey inched his way into 2nd place in Pax in the afternoon with a 51.220, scratched two 50.4’s with cones!!

Bill Sand took fastest vehicle with doors with a 49.2, which he backed up with a second CLEAN 49.2. I hope he got some video I need to see how he navigated the inside loop!

My GR Corolla did very well, but I couldn’t clean up my fastest runs from the morning, the RE71RS really like to be cooled off. Thanks to Jade for co-driving with me, without a co-driver I forget to do 90% of the things I need to do between runs.

Big thank you to all of the drivers who came out and enjoyed the weather both the sprinkles and after, as well as the volunteers who make the Iowa Region SCCA a successful club.

Results are posted here.

August 13th – Hawkeye Downs Speedway – Cedar Rapids, IA – Final Results | Pax Results | Raw Results | Pro Class Results

Hopefully we will see you in a couple weeks at the Iowa City Airport!

If you have pictures or video of the event you’d like to share send it over and I’ll add it to the recap.

-Drew

RE Iowa Region SCCA